


Of Classes, Impressions, and Boundaries

by TheReluctantShipper



Series: Pet Wizard [3]
Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Harry has anger issues, John is a Heavy Handed Bastard, M/M, POV Alternating, meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 16:13:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18253343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheReluctantShipper/pseuds/TheReluctantShipper
Summary: Marcone oversteps.I correct him.





	Of Classes, Impressions, and Boundaries

**Author's Note:**

> \- This is (obviously) a work of fanfiction. I don't own anything but the original characters. I don't claim ownership over the characters or storyline of the Dresden Files, no matter how grateful I am for them, which is hella.
> 
> \- Thanks to the Sister Husbands, who are my best friends in the whole world, and happen to be gracious enough to also beta most of my works for me. I don't know what I'd do without you girls, but I certainly wouldn't be doing this.
> 
> \- You can come see me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/thereluctantshipper) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/TheReluctantSh1?s=09) if me sharing fan edits and bitching about writer's block floats your boat.
> 
> \- I come by any mistakes here honestly, but feel free to point them out so I can correct them.
> 
> \- Oh, new fandom. Please don't expect this kind of fast output forever. This one kind of poured out of me, but no promises on when the next story in this series will post.
> 
> \- Feedback is life.

My life hasn’t changed much since I met John Marcone. I still work for Mrs. S, I’m just able to “forget” to cash the checks she gives me a lot more often, and I never need a room anymore. Someone besides me keeps the Beetle running, and let me tell you, Mike is a hell of a lot better at it than I ever was. I have a tiny apartment, and I finally have secondhand bookshelves to put my secondhand books. I don’t have a proper lab still, but I have a big hardware cabinet with a lock and covered with protective runes and spellwork where I keep ingredients and equipment for magic.

It’s not ideal, but I’m easy to please.

Officially, I’m on retainer as a “consultant” for Marcone personally. What that boils down to is that when he has a question about the supernatural, especially if it concerns the safety of Chicago or her people. I’m expected to be available for consult. Since phones and I don’t work well together most of the time, that means that Marcone and Hendricks are a relatively regular sight at the front desk of the hotel, which I personally find hilarious. They’re so obviously out of place, all tailored suits and shiny shoes in my shabby hotel lobby.

What? It’s funny, and I don’t get a lot in the way of entertainment. I can’t watch TV, you know.

Marcone knows a thing or two, but there are some significant gaps in his knowledge and I fill them in. Technically, there are rules against that kind of thing. But since the White Council has done precisely nothing for me, they can bite me. If they have a problem, they can take it up with Marcone, who showed an unholy and decidedly unhealthy interest in the Unseelie Accords. Stars, but I think the man gets off on paperwork and bureaucracy.

Actually, he’d probably make a good member of the fae. Not that I’d tell him that. His ego gets plenty of stroking without my help.

I still take the occasional missing item case, and on one memorable occasion a missing _python_ (why?). I still have a box of books labelled “Free” in the front lobby and the lightbulbs are still a pain in the ass to change.

I just have a shiny new key on my keyring, a car that works, and a relatively steady income.

And, you know. Technically, I work for the Outfit.

* * *

The first summons, for elocution classes that I’d been enrolled in without my knowledge, damn near went ignored. But for Bob, it would have.

“Of all the high-handed, passive-aggressive, manipulative-”

“Uh, Boss?” Bob said, interrupting my ranting.

I glared over at the shelf he rested on. Bob’s shelf was covered by a clumsily made curtain when I was out, in deference to the sunlight that could do some serious damage, but it was pushed to the side for now. The shelf had two candles on each end, but neither were lit (they were more for aesthetic, really). Cheap romance paperbacks were stacked haphazardly on the shelf, too. I switch them out every few weeks. We both call it “payment for services,” but we also both knew I’d have done it anyway.

 _“What?”_ I snapped.

“Well, while I agree that it’s _rude-”_

“You’re _damn_ right it’s rude! I-”

“Boss!” I quieted after Bob’s shout. He called me “boss,” but part of me was still a terrified sixteen-year-old who had turned to the spirit of intellect in desperation. Bob was my friend, sometimes my _only_ friend, but he was also my mentor, my teacher. I respected him, even if he did worship Nora Roberts like a god.

“Okay, so your kingpin is a dick,” Bob continued. “It doesn’t mean you couldn’t benefit from an elocution course.”

 _“Bob!”_ I shouted, betrayed. “First of all, I don’t need a damn speech class. _Second_ of all, he’s not _my_ anything.”

 _“Sure,_ of course, the lady isn’t protesting too much _at all.”_

 _“Bob,”_ I absolutely did not whine.

“What’s the first lesson?” Bob asked, slipping into teacher mode and ignoring my not-whine.

I heaved a sigh. “Knowledge is power.”

“Correct. And, being a wizard, you really can’t afford to say ‘no’ to any knowledge freely offered. There’s no reason to, anyway. Elocution is a useful tool.”

The wording of that phrase rattled in my brain for a second, but I couldn’t get a good hold on it, so I let it go for the moment. “I already know how to talk,” I said instead, not at all like a sulking teenager would.

“It’s not about just _knowing_ the rules, boss, it’s about knowing how to _break_ them. When you’re shaping a word, a phrase, for a spell, better to know how you’re bending a rule to fit your needs than to break one dangerously and have no idea until you’re already dead.”

I huffed. “Isn’t that what you’re here for?”

Bob somehow sniffed disdainfully without nostrils or a trachea. “No. I’m here to teach you, not coddle you.”

He said that, but I knew better. Bob might let me take a hit to the chin, but he wouldn’t put me in danger, not ever. Air spirits like to pretend they’re above petty human things like emotions, but they form attachments just like the rest of us.

Besides, I’m intimately acquainted with what it’s like to work with someone who genuinely doesn’t give a damn. Bob ain’t that.

That didn’t mean that any opportunity I get to make keeping me alive a little easier on Bob was to be passed up, though. Frankly, he needed all the help he could get.

I groaned and flopped down on the squishy, comfortable, thrift store couch that dominated the living room. I had decorated with big, plush rugs, overstuffed, mismatched furniture, and huge tapestries on the walls. Bob called it “whatever the teenage boy version of nesting is.” I argued that I was in my twenties, dammit. I wasn’t a teenager.

Which made me sound _so mature._

“You think I should go,” I said grimly, knowing the battle was already lost.

“Cheer up, boss! Maybe there will be some cute girls there! Or boys, not that they’re usually my style. Except for Italy, a few centuries ago. Bless, Italy was a time of exploration…”

* * *

So I took the stupid class (and if I enrolled in the follow-up class on my own, who was the wiser?) (Except Marcone, probably, the stalker). I also took a Latin class _(much_ better than the correspondence course). Marcone signed me up for several more, etiquette and _ballroom dancing,_ of all things, included. A lot of it was stupid and humiliating, but I talked Susan into taking the dance class with me and we had a good time (just as friends, which I tried to make very clear and she probably ignored).

A few weeks later, I could have rubbed elbows with Chicago’s elite and would only have stood out because of my height.

While I was taking the classes, which took up an incredible amount of time since Bob insisted I continue my magical training without pause and I still had to work at the hotel, I let the phrase that had stuck out to me rattle around in my head some more.

I’m no genius, but I can work out pretty complex ideas with relative speed most of the time. It comes with being a wizard. It’s not just hurling magic around willy-nilly, although I am, admittedly, very good at that. It’s about learning how to _think_ around a problem.

It’s like calculus. What the hell is the average person gonna use calculus for in their everyday life? I mean, if you’re not going to become a mathematician, or at least go into a field where mathematics plays a heavy role, there’s no need to know all of that stuff.

It’s not about how useful the actual information is, though. It’s about forcing your brain to think a different way than you normally do, to give yourself the ability to see things in a different light than you’re used to. The pathways forged learning calculus are ones that are used forever.

Magic is kind of like that, sometimes, and those pathways were getting a hell of a beating those couple of weeks.

So when I finally figured out why the phrase bothered me so much, why the specific _wording_ threw me for a loop, it felt like it had been right in front of me the whole time. I wasn’t even angry for a second, just flabbergasted that it hadn’t been immediately obvious.

Then, of course, I got angry.

 _Then,_ I was called on to rub elbows with Chicago’s elite.

* * *

When Harry walked into the restaurant on time, wearing the clothes I sent for him, I can’t deny that a thrill of possessive satisfaction shuddered its way down my spine. There was no outward sign of my feelings, of course, I’ve become very practiced at keeping my feelings hidden, but they were undeniable.

Harry spotted us almost immediately, and I knew something was wrong as he made his way over. The way he walked was perfect, every movement the epitome of grace. _So the dancing classes paid off._ His hair was neatly combed back, the suit fit him like a dream, and he had an easygoing smile on his face that suited his full mouth well.

His eyes, however, were cold, distant.

The times that Harry and I had met to discuss magic, in the dingy little hotel he refused to leave behind for some God-forsaken reason, he had been warm, fiery. His eyes had danced with heat as we argued, picked fights with one another, and as he taught me the Art. He had a passion for magic, and I had a passion for learning whatever I had to do protect my city.

 _(“Our city, Marcone, it’s_ our _city.”)_

Now, he may as well have been talking to a stranger when he took his place at my side with a polite nod, his hands in the pockets of his pants (can’t train all of the manners into someone in just a few weeks, apparently).

“Marcone, Hendricks,” he said, voice thick with false warmth.

I didn’t frown, but it was a very near thing. Nathan cocked an eyebrow but nodded back with only a beat to show for hesitation.

“Dresden.”

“Harry,” I said with a tiny smile on my lips.

“Don’t call me Harry,” he said, but it was as if by rote, lacking any real spitfire he’d shown previously.

Before I could dig in and find out what was going on, a deep, booming voice called across the restaurant foyer.

“Marcone! You old bastard, get over here, let me take a look at you!”

Long training kept my face from tightening in my displeasure. Anthony Russo, a sort of peer from Boston, was visiting Chicago. Societal expectations demanded that I at least have a meal with the man, and my own preservation instincts had told me to bring a show of force. Russo wasn’t stupid enough to try an overt takeover, but my hold on Chicago was not yet quite as ironclad as I wished it to be. He needed to be shown, quickly and thoroughly, that I was no weakling. The fastest way to do that was, of course, to show no fear, to bring Nathan, and to bring something Russo didn’t expect.

I was willing to bet that the bastard wasn’t expecting me to have a _wizard._

I turned and kept a small smile on my face. “Russo,” I said genially. Harry and Nathan turned with me, almost as if they’d practiced it.

Anthony was a short, rotund man who was somehow perpetually sweaty. He was vulgar, violent, prone to fits of a vicious temper, and he had almost as much power in Boston as I had in Chicago. The difference, of course, was that he ruled his people with fear, and I ruled mine with money and respect. I couldn’t stand the man, and I was fairly sure he couldn’t stand me, either.

His smile, however smarmy, was warm, though. “Johnny, Johnny, Johnny! You brought guests to a business dinner!” He shook a fat finger at me as he and the very young, incredibly out of his league woman on his arm came to stand in front of us. “You naughty boy!”

“Please,” I said, an answering smile on my face, just as insincere. “A precaution, no more. When you are in my city, Russo, you will be treated as I am. Only my closest personal protective detail is with me tonight.”

Russo’s dark, beady eyes flashed over Nathan and Harry. Inside, I was bristling with indignation that he should stare at my friend and my wizard with such propriety, but outwardly I nodded toward the dining room of the restaurant.

“Shall we?”

* * *

“A _wizard,_ you say?” The derision in Russo’s voice was enough to make me grind my teeth, were I the kind of uncontrolled man to do so.

We managed to make it through the entire meal without anything untoward being brought up. We talked about business, Russo bragged about the “secretary” he’d brought with him (and, rather crudely, kept his goddamn hand stuck up her skirt the entire night). I schmoozed and chuckled in the right places, kept the liquor flowing into Russo’s cup, always looking for any signs of weakness, of which plenty were revealed.

Harry, too, was charming and reserved throughout the meal. He managed to defer to me at every opportunity, making it obvious which one of us was in charge. It was an incredible change from the scruffy, skinny man who’d defied me upon first meeting from the other side of the hotel lobby.

I didn’t like it.

I also didn’t have much time to consider the consequences of that dislike, because Harry was responding.

“Not the birthday party kind,” he was saying, his voice cool and professional like it had been all night.

“And what other kinds of ‘wizard’ are there?” Dear God, he’d done actual air quotes.

Harry smiled. “Just one kind, sir. The real ones.”

Russo huffed. “Right, well, I don’t hold with all of that fancy, new age shit, kiddo. You’ll just have to-”

As Russo was speaking, Harry looked down, muttered a soft word that didn’t sound like it was in English, and produced, seemingly from thin air, a thick leather wallet. Russo cut off immediately, eyes going wide and blank, as Harry placed the wallet on the center of the round table with no more fanfare than if he was reaching for his own glass of water.

Harry smiled, and there was _finally_ some of the teeth he’d always shown me in our interactions. It was directed at the wrong person, of course, but I was willing to accept baby steps.

“Magic,” Harry said with finality.

Russo sputtered, and I worried for a moment that his reaction would be negative when his dinner guests tittered and applauded.

Absolutely appalling.

“Brava!” she cried out in a shrill voice. “Brava! Just brilliant!”

Russo, apparently deciding it wasn’t time to make a scene, grumbled good-naturedly and took his wallet back. Harry sat back in his chair, but there was no smug satisfaction in the lines of his long, lean body, or in his brown eyes when they met mine for a brief moment. Only the same cool distance as there had been from the beginning of the evening.

I still didn’t like it, but I managed to let it go. For the moment.

* * *

I did not get to where I am by not having instincts. I did not get where I am by not _listening_ to said instincts.

I knew, as we walked out of the restaurant and saw a very drunk Russo and date into their limo that Harry, despite his easygoing and cool behavior, was angry. _Furious,_ really.

Someone with the kind of power Harry has being angry with me should have had alarms going off in my head, but I walked next to him without fear. I’d seen Harry shovel snow and salt walkways without being asked to or paid for it because his elderly boss couldn’t do it or afford to have it done. I’d seen him with Lottie, playing cards and shamelessly letting her win.

I didn’t believe Harry Dresden was capable of killing me just because he was angry with me.

He was still a hothead, though, so when I felt the tingle of magic around me and my vision blurred a bit, as if looking through dirty glass, I didn’t panic.

I opened my mouth to reprimand Harry when a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt wrapped around my arm and hauled me into a nearby alley. I was abruptly reminded that, though Harry was several years younger than I, he was still over six and a half feet tall, and he was a _wizard._

I found myself with my back pressed against a rough brick wall and my front pressed against Harry. _Not quite what I had in mind for this scenario,_ I thought a bit ruefully.

Ah, but _here_ was the fire I’d missed earlier. Harry’s brown eyes were sparkling with barely contained fury. I fancied that I could almost _feel_ the heat of the flames I knew he was able to conjure through the fabric of my coat where his hands gripped my shoulders.

I could have freed myself rather easily, of course, but I was interested to see how this played out. How much had Harry seen, deduced? What, precisely, had upset him so much?

So I didn’t fight him, nor did I shout for help. I knew his veil wouldn’t stop the sound, but I didn’t try to raise the alarm.

Nathan often tells me that my curiosity will get me killed some day. He may be right, but the need to know was burning in my belly.

“I have the feeling that something-”

He slammed me against the wall lightly. Not hard enough to really hurt, but enough to shut me up.

 _“Listen,”_ he growled, anger pulling his features tight and sharp. “I will go to every stupid class you want me to, and I will tag along to play wizardly backup to Hendricks. I’ll answer your questions, and I’ll do whatever magic we _both_ deem necessary to keep Chicago safe.

Harry shook me again, and honestly, didn’t he know that if he were anyone else, I would have had him run out of the city for his insolence?

“But I am _not,”_ he snarled, getting up in my face again, “a _tool_ for you to shape, or holster, or use at your will. And I am _definitely_ not here to use the forces of creation to impress your _goddamn competition.”_

 _I_ was impressed, frankly. I hadn’t told Harry who Russo was, and those of us who work in organized crime certainly don’t advertise our résumés over dinner. Harry had figured that out on his own, probably only a few moments after meeting Russo. Granted, he wasn’t the most subtle man on the planet, but we’d spoken in veiled speech and vague references.

 _Stop underestimating the wizard,_ I told myself firmly. _There is a reason you chose him._

“Of course, Harry,” I said, instead of giving voice to the thoughts racing through my head. “Forgive me.”

He growled a little and shook me again, then let me go and took a step back. As he did so, the veil around us dropped and the night became crystal clear again.

 _“Don’t_ call me Harry.”

Before I could respond, Nathan stormed around the corner, glowering at us. “What the hell, Dresden?”

“Oh, I stumbled,” Harry said easily, body language going from angry to open and honest again in the blink of an eye. _Another impressive feat for the night,_ I thought wryly.

“Marcone here was helping me out.”

Nathan gave us both the stink eye before I gave him a subtle nod. He heaved a put upon sigh (he thinks this thing with Dresden is stupid and reckless, and he refuses to even give it a chance, and it is one of the only times I’ve ever completely disregarded his opinion)and turned around, waving a hand.

“Come on. Car’s waiting.”

I followed Harry and Nathan out, then fell into step next to the wizard as we made our way to the car. I thought for a few moments, then broke the silence.

“How did you do it?”

Harry took a beat to realize I was talking to him and turned to cock an eyebrow at me. “Do what?”

“Take Russo’s wallet. From what you’ve told me, that’s a rather more delicate touch than you currently possess.”

Harry’s features smoothed from confused to smug and he grinned. “Oh, that. I nicked it before we sat down at the table.”

My own eyebrows wanted to crawl into my hairline. “Excuse me?”

Harry shrugged. “I knew he was going to ask for a demonstration. If I’d actually tried to use magic, I could have hurt someone. At the very least I would have blown the lights out. Magic isn’t the only way to do cool stuff or to solve problems, but it does teach one to be prepared. I knew he’d ask, so I prepared.”

“How did you know he would ask?”

Harry’s smile was a little vicious and sent a pleasant shiver down my spine.

“You see, Marcone, people? People are easy.”


End file.
